427. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [mid-August 1799] ⁠* 

My dear Wynn

Since my last I have endured a perpetual state of uneasiness on account of Ediths health. you know we purposed visiting Devonshire. for some time previous to our departure she had been exceedingly unwell, – it was thought the journey would benefit her & we set out in much hope, fortified with advice & a stock of medecines. We got to Minehead, where I intended to pass a fortnight. during the whole of that period she was so exceedingly ill as to make me think it expedient to return. she however slowly amended. Mrs Coleridge came to her & Edith returned with her, a distance of but a few miles, if she amended we could proceed from thence – if not we should be nearer Bristol. I went westwards, for much confinement & little sleep had brought back my old evil symptoms with greater violence than ever. on my return I find her still slowly amending.

In these circumstances & under this state of mind you will see how impossible it is that I should have done anything. I only played with the pen I took up – & if a book was open before me read the words & scarcely affixed to them any meaning.

My walk has not perceptibly benefited me – it was from Minehead down the North coast of Somersetshire to Ilfracombe & round by Barnstable Tiverton & Taunton. [1]  Lymouth a little village on the coast is the most interesting place I have yet seen in this country. the roads to it on all sides are unpassable by a carriage & it is of course little known. imagine two mountain streams each running down a dell among crags like a long waterfall – the one dell richly wooded, the other winding among bare & stony hills. a fine eminence rises between these dells & where the two streams meet Lymouth stands – they flow into the channel immediately at their junction & of course the roar of the sea forms one sounds with the dashing of the rivers. even without the sea this place would be one of the most interesting I ever saw. ascending half a mile from hence up a road serpentinely perpendicular almost you turn into the Valley of Stones – a miraculous place. the range of hills here next the sea are completely stripped of their soil & only the bones of the earth left – stone upon stone. Its origin I could not conjecture. water if it had overwhelmed it must have inundated all the lower lands in the country, for these are very high – & yet the hills on the other side the Valley – not an arrows flight distant are cloathed with herbage. a water spout perhaps – but I am no naturalist to my shame, & so endeavoured to find out a poetic origin for it. was it the work of our aboriginal giants? no – for Goemagog one of the hugest was not so big but Corineus could carry him – ergo no Giants could have been large-limbd enough. [2]  I conceive therefore to be the remains of some work erected by the Devils who came to intrigue with the fifty daughters of Diocletian [3]  – for I can trace no other inhabitants of our island who possessed power enough for the work.

here I past some hours, alone, on the summit of the highest point two stones inclining on each other form a portal. in this I lay down – a little platform of turf lay level with me about two yards long – & then the eye fell upon the sea – a tremendous depth of precipice. you can hardly imagine the feeling it gave me to close my eyes a minute – & then open them upon the scene.

direct to Cottles still – & your letters will find me somewhere. I wish you well to Berlin – anywhere – rather than to Ireland.

yrs affectionately

R Southey.